A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 224 THEODORE DREISER 228 JOHN COWPER POWYS 231 NEW YEAR’S DAY 234 PLAYING BLIND 240 I SHALL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN 241 ELIZABETH TO MONSIEUR D---- 244 MONSIEUR D---- TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 249 THE LAST CONFESSION 261 IN THE LOGGIA 268 BE WITH ME THROUGH THE SPRING 272 DESOLATE SCYTHIA 273 THE SEARCH 274 THE GREAT VALLEY I FORT DEARBORN Here the old Fort stood When the river bent southward. Now because the world pours itself into Chicago The Lake runs into the river Past docks and switch-yards, And under bridges of iron. Sand dunes stretched along the lake for miles. There was a great forest in the Loop. Now Michigan Avenue lies Between miles of lights, And the Rialto blazes Where the wolf howled. In the loneliness of the log-cabin, Across the river, The fur-trader played his fiddle When the snow lay About the camp of the Pottawatomies In the great forest. Now to the music of the Kangaroo Hop, And Ragging the Scale, And La Seduccion, The boys and girls are dancing In a cafe near Lake Street. The world is theirs now. There is neither a past nor a to-morrow, Save of dancing. Nor do they know that behind them In the seed not yet sown There are eyes which will open upon Chicago, And feet which will blossom for the dance, And hands which will reach up And push them into the silence Of the old fiddler. They threw a flag Over the coffin of Lieutenant Farnum And buried him back of the Fort In ground where now The spice mills stand. And his little squaw with a baby Sat on the porch grieving While the band played. Then hands pushing the world Buried a million soldiers and afterward Pale multitudes swept through the Court-house To gaze for the last time Upon the shrunken face of Lincoln. And the fort at thirty-fifth street vanished. And where the Little Giant lived They made a park And put his statue Upon a column of marble. Now the glare of the steel mills at South Chicago Lights the bronze brow of Douglas. It is his great sorrow Haunting the Lake at mid-night.